Alternative sentencing being explored

With the cost of maintaining prisoners increasing each year, Government is considering the use of alternative punitive and corrective measures for minor crimes, Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson has revealed.

Delivering the featured remarks at the retirement ceremony for Assistant Superintendent of Prisons Cedric Moore, which was held on the grounds of Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds, Hinkson revealed that it took $32,000 to keep a single prisoner at the St Philip-based facility for one year.

Currently the prison has a population of 850 inmates, which means it cost tax payers just over $27 million per year to maintain the prison population.

“That $32,000 is just to house them, it doesn’t include when they are sick, to go to a polyclinic or Queen Elizabeth Hospital or the Psychiatric hospital. All these things are issues that we have to look at and decide as a country whether or not we can continue to afford it,” said Hinkson.

The Minister contended that it was pointless to place petty offenders with hardened criminals, adding that a criminal record was dooming these persons to a life of unemployment, even though it may not have been too late to rehabilitate them.

“We as a Government have to look at alternative sentencing. Ankle monitors is one such option that must be considered. Do we continue to send young people to prison where they meet up with the hardened criminal and instead of rehabilitation, they are further entrenched in a life of crime? We must look to offer these persons opportunities in life to reform outside of the prison system,” he explained. He said efforts must also be ramped up to reach vulnerable groups of young people before they run afoul of the law.

However, the Minister made it clear that Government will continue to maintain a heavy hand on perpetrators of serious crimes including murder and rape.
colvillemounsey@barbadostoday.bb